Subject:
When is a country a candidate for Maoist revolt??The other India-no access to internet, but a rifle Herc the Merc8/11/2007 3:23:54 AM

news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070810/wl_nm/india_poor_dc
Nearly 80 percent of India lives on half dollar a day Fri Aug 10, 10:08 AM ET
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Seventy-seven percent of Indians -- about 836 million people -- live on less than half a dollar a day in one of the world's hottest economies, a government report said.
ADVERTISEMENT
The state-run National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS) said most of those living on below 20 rupees (50 US cents) per day were from the informal labor sector with no job or social security, living in abject poverty.
"For most of them, conditions of work are utterly deplorable and livelihood options extremely few," said the report, entitled "Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in the Unorganized Sector," seen by Reuters on Friday.
"Such a sordid picture co-exists uneasily with a shining India that has successfully confronted the challenge of globalization powered by economic competition both within the country and across the world."
Around 26 percent of India's population lives below the poverty line, which is defined as 12 rupees per day, said officials.
Economic liberalization since the early 1990s has created a 300 million-strong middle class and led to an average annual economic growth of 8.6 percent over the last four years, but millions of the country's poor remain untouched by the boom.
According to the report, based on data from 2004-2005, 92 percent of India's total workforce of 457 million were employed as agricultural laborers and farmers, or in jobs such as working in quarries, brick kilns or as street vendors.
The report said the majority of those working and living under "miserable conditions" were lower castes, tribal people and Muslims and the most disadvantaged of these were women, migrant workers and children.
"This is the other world which can be characterized as the India of the Common People, constituting more than three-fourths of the population and consisting of all those whom the growth has, by and large, bypassed," said the report.
The NCEUS report, which was presented to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday, recommends the government provide social security benefits such as maternity and medical expenses as well as pensions to people working in the Unorganized sector.

Says the agrarian crisis has swept across the country and farmers are ending their lives

? Photo: Anu Pushkarna http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/21/images/2007082160871001.jpg" width=350 align=center border=1> Show of protest: Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha L.K. Advani, BJP president Rajnath Singh and other leaders at a farmers’ rally, organised by the BJP, at the Ramlila Grounds in New Delhi on Monday.

NEW DELHI: Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha L.K. Advani on Monday asserted that the crisis over the nuclear deal with the United States had cast serious doubts over the future of the United Progressive Alliance Government, and added that mid-term elections were now a certainty.

“It will be difficult to predict how long the present crisis will drag on but the Government will not survive its full term. The crisis is of its own making and others cannot be blamed for it,” he said at a “kisan rally” at the Ramlila Grounds here against the “anti-farmer policies” of the Congress-led Government.

Mr. Advani said: “It is for the first time that farmers have been compelled to commit group suicides under the present Congress-led regime. The agrarian crisis has swept across the country and farmers in prosperous States like Punjab too were ending their lives.”

Huge disparities

The Government had flawed economic policies. The talk of high growth becomes meaningless in the face of huge disparities, he said.

Alleging that farmers were discriminated against, Mr. Advani stressed the need to direct investment towards rural economy to put villages on the path to progress.

BJP president Rajnath Singh said the nation’s prosperity was linked to the prosperity of farmers.

“Petrol and diesel prices had increased six times in the past two years but the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for crops has failed to keep pace. The average production of food grains a family has reduced from 260 kg to 186 kg over the years. The Government’s failure to convert the population into workforce has impeded the pace of development,” he said.

Demanding a joint parliamentary committee probe into alleged wheat import scam, he said only 9 per cent of wheat was bought from farmers in 2005-06 and a huge quantity was imported to benefit black marketers and businessmen.

Mr. Singh also demanded implementation of the Farm Income Guarantee Insurance Scheme as envisaged by the National Democratic Alliance Government and immediate upward review of MSP for all crops.

The former BJP president, Murli Manohar Joshi, the former Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister, Gopinath Munde, and Delhi BJP chief Harsha Vardhan were also present. The BJP leaders were detained while taking a march to Parliament but released later.